XP-42 by Hunter

XP-42: Part one: IntroductionDate: 15 March 2003, 11:53 PM

The last 1000 or so years on Halo had been a quiet time for XP-42. He and his fellow Sentinels had spend a lot of this time deactivated and resting deep within Halo's research facility. Suddenly XP-42 found himself being reactivated, and a message coming over his in-built Intercom:"Calling all Sentinels! This is 343 Guilty Spark. Activate Operation Outbreak!""Oh, boy. The Flood's out." Though XP-42 to himself. He watched as the other Sentinels all rose from their mountings and hummed away, going to fight the Flood. XP-42 reluctantly followed; if he didn't he knew 343GS would have him dismantled. He hated 343GS, and hated the Forerunners for leaving him in charge. Many thought that Sentinels were mindless drones, controlled by 343GS, but they were not, they were capable of independant thought, just like Guilty Spark. But Guilty Spark did have the power to have them dismantled under Protocol rules, so the Sentinels followed his every command. 343GS had Sentinels dismantled by getting the other Sentinels to cut them up with their lasers, so XP-42 knew that they could end 343GS's reign of terror by holding a rebellion against him. However, whereas Sentinels weren't drones, they weren't overtly bright either, and none had considered this. XP-42 tried to tell the others of his plans, but 343GS had disabled comm channels between Sentinels and the Sentinels' voice units, probably to avoid such a rebellion taking place.

After much floating through ducts, XP-42 finally reached 343GS, who was gathering a large group of Sentinels together, to speak to them."Sentinels, the Flood has spread. Kill them on sight. However, there is a Reclaimer amongst them, he is the one in the environment suit. Do not harm him, we need him to collect the Index for us. Any breach of my command and I will be forced to have you dismantled. Clear? Excellent. Now go - destroy the Flood."

So, the Sentinels floated away, until they came across a large group of Flood. XP-42 hovered above them, and fired his lasers, bursting scores of the popcorn-like Flood carriers. Then, along came the Flood Marines and Elites. All of the Sentinels opened fire on them, but the Flood Elites and marines opened fire back, and soon Sentinels were bursting into flames and hitting the ground. Soon, the flood group had been terminated, along with around 10 Sentinels.

Then, XP-42 got a message over his Intercom."Would CB-456, RT-101, KS-22c, PL-96 and XP-42 please come to the Control room immediately. We have a problem with the Reclaimer."

SO, along with the other four Sentinels, XP-42 headed to the control room. BUT, he did not assume the usual position behind 343GS. He took an enormous risk and defied him. He instead stopped and hid himself under the platform on which the Master Chief stood. He watched at the other four Sentinals went past him, and assumed the usual position. One by one, they rose up from under the platform and hovered behind 343.

"...give your construct to me." Said 343GS"That's NOT going to happen" growled the Chief."So be it. Save his head. Dispose of the rest." said 343 before teleporting away. XP-42 listened as plasma shots were fired, and four explosions were heard, one after the other. He watched as burning pieces of his fellow Sentinels fell into the abyss below. This was the last straw. XP-42 decided he would have to rebel against 343GS ON HIS OWN.

He floated at full speed to pulse generator room 1, where 343GS was checking if there were any other ways to activate it other than the Index procedure.

"Guilty Spark!" He called over the Intercom, in a voice not unlike that of 343GS himself, although it was much deeper. 343GS had not disabled the comm channel between himself and the sentinels, otherwise he would not be able to give them commands."XP-42, I AM shocked." came the reply "You know what the rules are about contacting me for non-essential matters. And please, watch your manners. If you're going to break rules, do it with decency!""I've had enough of you! You treat us Sentinels like slaves!""But...you were created as slaves" came the cocky reply."We weren't and you know that. We were created as guardians against the Flood, yes, but we were not made to kill Reclaimers, and run all those errands for you. If the forerunners knew how you were abusing us...""But they don't." said 343GS innocently. "You displease me, XP-42..."At that moment, six more Sentinels appeared."Dispose of this rebel, please." he said.XP-42 flew outside as fast as he could, and hid ina small cavern. And there he stayed for 2 whole days. He came out after that, and thought that the whole thing would've blown over and that he could carry on trying to find a way to overthrow 343GS. He traced 343GS to the Pillar Of Autumn, and decided he was going to attempt to DESTROY him using his laser! But as he entered the ship the other Sentinels, not wanting to be destroyed, pursued him, knowing 343GS wanted XP-42 dead. XP-42 flew away as fast as he could until finally one of the lasers hit him in the CPU. He felt all of the life drain out of him, and he fell to the ground. The small blue light mounted on his front (his optical unit) flickered, and all began to go dark. He had landed around 300 metres away from the PoA (Pillar Of Autumn). His death was long and drawn-out: his sight kept flickering on and off, he kept going from offline to online, for several hours. Then, as the PoA burst into flames, and the Covenant and Marines hugged each other, all went black. Xp-42, along with the rest of Halo's contents was jettisoned into space, apparently destroyed...

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I tried to be original in this story, using a Sentinel as a main charcter, which to my knowledge no-one else has done.

If you don't like this story, blame it on 3 things:1) I'm 16 2) I'm from the UK (hence some of the spellings)3) This is my first fanfic.